Greenburgh - Abandoned!

Finally, the elections are over. Very little has changed. Routes 119, 9 and 9A are still littered with campaign signs and Greenburgh is still wanting for real leadership. Yet, Greenburgh Republicans have been abandoned by the Westchester Republican Party and it’s Chairman, Douglas Colety. Directly, and even indirectly, he helped seal the Town’s fate with substandard leaders with his wholesale writing off of the Town. His and the Westchester Republican Party's rationale is that the Democrats have a stranglehold on the Town and it is not worth expending any money on any races there. We know it’s ridiculous but doubt the Greenburgh Republican leader will want to rock that boat.

If this wholesale disregard for election areas were carried over toward any other locale, Colety and the Westchester Republicans would not have sponsored Dr. Iris Pagan for County Legislator or the other White Plains Republican races for Common Council or Susan Konig of Peekskill for that matter. Each time the Westchester Republicans (ultimately Colety) pick a race they want to win, they dump most of their resources into it without regard to other candidates. By focusing on one or two races and ignoring the others, they limit their chances of success. But what do we know? Colety obviously knows what he’s doing.

In the last Westchester County legislative race, the Republicans financially backed several candidates while casting the rest aside. As a matter of course, Robert ‘Bob’ Hyland, somewhat a local celebrity, was on the receiving end of the Republican machine's help twice - first as a County Legislative candidate against incumbent Bill Ryan and then a year later as the Mayoral candidate for White Plains. Hyland put all his (lack of) political knowledge and faith in the Westchester Republican Party and the White Plains Republican Party for his campaigns. He claims he followed their instructions and management to the letter. He later recounted how he had to wait until almost the last month of the campaign cycle for his County Legislative campaign literature he was promised from the machine. As he went from event to event, he had nothing to hand out or leave behind. Bob Hyland is a class act and we admire what he tried to do. In the end, he didn’t lose by much, but like the saying says, close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes.

A few seats here and there were picked up by the Republicans throughout the County at different levels of government. And, depending on the recount for the race in Westchester County’s District #3 between John Nonna and Michael Smith, the balance in the legislature of Republicans to Democrats may stay the same. We’re told County Executive Astorino was overheard in the Westchester Republican Party Headquarters complaining to Colety and other leaders that he can’t get anything accomplished in the legislature because there aren’t enough Republicans in it. We reached out to four former candidates, who lost, that ran when Astorino ran and won, three of whom talked to us and one who had no comment. The three who did speak to us confirmed Astorino’s reluctance to work with them and probably the other candidates when he ran for office. They claim Astorino didn’t want to include them in his issues as that was his race and their race was unrelated to his. It just didn’t make sense to him. That’s too bad because in the end, these other candidates were able to foresee exactly what is playing out now and had he helped them, he might have had some allies in the legislature. Live and learn, Rob, live and learn.

What kind of future support can we expect from the Westchester Republican Party in Greenburgh? Probably very little, but we’d at least like to see a punch or two thrown at Colety and try to get us some help. Their last nominee was Nicholas DeCicco, from Hartsdale, who was found guilty of ethics violations when he was a member of the Greenburgh Zoning Board and a candidate for County Legislator. We wrote extensively about that and don’t need to rehash old news. However, we will mention DeCicco’s was another selective campaign financed and run by the Westchester Republican Party, alas to no avail as DeCicco lost to MaryJane Shimsky, a Democrat from Hastings. As an aside, DeCicco left the Zoning Board and was recently appointed to the Planning Board.

We’ve seen some good Republican candidates rise to the occasion at each election, however this shouldn’t be a Republican vs Democratic issue. Rather, it’s a lack of good governance issue. Not having Boards anywhere with contrary opinions, different values and unique perspectives doesn’t allow us, the supposed “representees”, the best of anything. There lacks a well-rounded, comprehensive outlook as to what will improve and ultimately, sustain our Town. If all we have are the same opinions, we’ll wind up with the Stepford Town. Oops, wait a minute, we already have that with our Stepford Town Board. Fall in step and check your personality at the door. We have some agendas to get through.